EDA Activity in India: Part 1

The EDA industry stands on the threshold of change. The semiconductor roadmap is partly responsible for driving the industry down this path. Globalization and the emergence of large design centers outside the traditional strongholds of North America, Western Europe and Japan is another factor.

Initially, design engineers in the emerging geographies primarily worked on PCB designs. Over time, they have moved up the complexity curve to the point  where they work on cutting edge design at the 65 nm level and smaller geometries. In addition, these design centers have also set up research and development groups that are working on innovative research projects. In turn this work has led to both new product development and patent filings. As a recent news article mentioned, TI India’s Bangalore center has filed for a large number of patents, another indicator of leading edge research that is being done in India.

This brings us to the EDA vendors. EDA vendors moved to the emerging geographies as well, following their customers. For years, they were generally a token presence. The companies mostly had small offices with a few sales people to call on local accounts, with perhaps some support activity for products that were either older or were reaching the end of their lifecycle,  or where application engineers mostly provided local support.